Caroline Kennedy

A 'Murphy Day' Continued
June 27, 2007

So … when I last left off, I finally got onto a flight to Dallas and we took off. Riding in the middle seat is not my favorite, but I deal; I’ve got a seat. I settle in, work a little, read a little. They pass out the pretzels and serve beverages. Being the middle of the afternoon, there is no snack and this aircraft has no video, but I have plenty to keep me occupied. Time passes and I check my watch; it seems as if we should be landing soon. My fashion watch is difficult to read (looks great, but really hard to tell the correct time!) and I’m still on New York time, so as I struggle to figure out what time it actually is, the captain comes on the PA to inform us that we can’t get into Dallas because of thunderstorms. We are being diverted to Little Rock to refuel and wait for clearance to land in Dallas! But, he adds, once we get that clearance, it’s only a short 50-minute flight from Little Rock to the Big D. There’s a little mumbling and grumbling to be heard, but everybody takes the news in stride. What can we do? We are a captive audience.

Another 15 minutes goes by and once again the captain makes an announcement; he informs us that there’s been a change of plans — we’re not going to Little Rock, we are going the Shreveport, LA. That’s good he says, we’ll be closer to Dallas. And so we land in Shreveport. It is now 7 p.m. (central time, 8 p.m. eastern time)

The Shreveport airport is small and is only used by Continental Express. We cannot deplane and go into the terminal, it is closed. Many of the passengers stay in their seats; others stand in the aisle just to stretch their legs. The flight crew opens all the doors to get some fresh air circulating and the ground crew scrounges around and finds enough snacks for most of us. The kids on the flight especially are hungry. After all it is dinnertime. I learned a long time ago to always have something in my bag to snack on just in case.

The captain calmly makes another announcement. “You may have noticed if you looked out the window that the flaps are stuck,” he says. “One is at 30 degrees and one is at 40 (Whatever that means! – other than “it is not right, ” I think to myself.) We cannot take off until we get this fixed.” So now, in addition to waiting for the storms to clear in Dallas and the plane to be refueled, we now have to wait for the mechanics to come and fix the flaps.

We all take the news remarkably calmly and the flight crew is really nice and apologetic. It’s been a long day for many of us, not just for me and the others who were cancelled out of the early morning flight. One of my seatmates was on the last leg of her journey home from Italy; another family were flying from India.

Finally, a little after 9 p.m., we get the news that we are good to go. We button down and buckle up for the short hop to Dallas. At 11 p.m.(midnight by my time and nearly 20 hours into my long day), I finally check into my hotel and head straight to the bar!

Posted by Caroline Kennedy on June 27, 2007 | Comments (1)